<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Stupid and Useless by daintylemonsquare</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28054935">Stupid and Useless</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/daintylemonsquare/pseuds/daintylemonsquare'>daintylemonsquare</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dalton Academy Series</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>But a little bit to the left, Canon Compliant, M/M, Unprotected Feelings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:28:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,660</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28054935</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/daintylemonsquare/pseuds/daintylemonsquare</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Clark asks Julian for the truth.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Julian Larson-Armstrong/Clark Sawyer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Stupid and Useless</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Clark Sawyer was similar to Logan Wright in the following ways:</p><ul>
<li>He was handsome. Dangerously so. Effortlessly so. He had the face of a heartbreaker. When he smiled, it was debilitating. His body sculpted by masterful hands that knew how to whet people’s appetites. He had freckles in the summer that he tried to hide and it was so annoyingly endearing when he did.</li>
<li>He was musical. When he sat with an instrument, when he opened his mouth to sing, the world around him righted itself and stood to watch. His voice was beguiling. There was gravity around him when he performed that only the most talented people could pull off without having to try too much. His fingers flew over the notes and the chords with such grace that it was hard not to stare at them and wonder what else they were capable of.</li>
<li>When he laughed, it never failed to brighten the room. It was soft at first then it came out all at once. It was the kind of laugh that made others laugh.</li>
<li>He gave the best hugs. The embrace was tight and warm and secure. It encompassed the day, making it seem better than it actually was.</li>
<li>He didn’t dance. He could, if he wanted to, but he didn’t. It wasn’t his thing but it was still funny when he was convinced to do so. For someone so tall and so broad, he was so cute when he danced.</li>
<li>He was Julian’s best friend.</li>
</ul><p>Clark Sawyer was dissimilar to Logan Wright in the following ways:</p><ul>
<li>He wasn’t gay.</li>
<li>His anger, if it ever existed, never manifested itself in the world, let alone touched it. Whenever he was angry, he was silent. It was in his clenched jaw, in the way all the sunlight disappeared behind his eyes, in the long, quiet sigh that ran through his nostrils. That was it. No one knew where it went afterwards, so much so that no one knew if it was real or imagined.</li>
<li>He always had something nice to say about a person. Unless they were completely repugnant, he held his criticisms between a nice sandwich of a thoughtfully curated kind words. He saw the good in others as much as he could.</li>
<li>He laughed more often, smiled more often. Most people in Hollywood did that to ingratiate themselves into better company. He did it because he loved to laugh with others as much as he loved music.</li>
<li>His edges, if any, were rounded and soft. Working in this industry, he had his walls, but they were easy to get through with the right amount of time and the right attitude. People would think this was a sign of naivety. That he hadn’t experienced enough harm that he was still optimistic. The ones closest to him knew this was a choice that he chose every time he got pushed down or screwed. They admired him for it.</li>
<li>He saw through masks, even the shiniest, most manicured mask of smiles, he could see right through it. He noticed the tiniest crack in the smile. He never used this against the other person. If they were being fake around him, he’d just politely avoid. If they were his friends, he’d wait until they were alone to ask about how they were feeling.</li>
<li>Julian couldn’t escape him.</li>
</ul><p>There was nowhere to go. He couldn’t go back to Ohio. It’d been months since he first left without looking away. Months since he last spoke to anyone from that godforsaken school. Months since he threw his baggage into the back of his head for incineration and got ready for a new horizon in his life. In fact, it was almost a year since and he thought he was free of whatever pathetic shackles he put on himself.</p><p>Only to find that he was shackling himself to yet another person. That person being more insightful the last. And, of course, he was tall, blond, and musical. He was so predictable. He hated himself.</p><p>“J, I don’t understand,” Clark asked. “Please. I want to know what I did wrong.”</p><p>They were in Julian’s room in the Larson manor. Clark was a step inside the door. Julian was standing up from his desk. On it was yet another script he was trying to forget the world with. He was practicing for an audition to be part of a project that would’ve taken him elsewhere. The third one he asked to be in.</p><p>“It’s not fucking you, okay?” Julian didn’t mean to shout, but he did. He closed his eyes when Clark flinched. He hated himself. He hated it here. He didn’t mean to fall in love with him. This wasn’t even love. He just wanted to be wanted by people who didn’t want him. He was sick that way.</p><p>“Then why does it feel like it is,” Clark said softly.</p><p>Julian just turned down a collaboration with Haven. Before that, he declined Clark’s offering to write some songs for him. Then before that, he told Clark he couldn’t come to his birthday but would send him a gift in the mail. Then even before that, he stopped visiting Clark’s trailer while they filmed their first project together outside of Something Damaged. Julian couldn’t be around him. He hoped that he could strangle his feelings before they got too out of hand but it was all over him the same way his feelings for Logan were all over him.</p><p>Another difference between Clark and Logan was that Clark was easier to love while Logan was easier to let go. He held on to Logan the way a person held piping hot food in their mouth. Even if it hurt, it still tasted delicious. There was a little bit of pay off at the end. With Clark, it was like holding the softest stuffed animal for the first time and squealing, but over and over again. It was unfair. Julian had to sever himself from him as much as he could. He didn’t want to ruin this friendship with resentment and resignation and bitterness, the same way he ruined his friendship with Logan. Clark didn’t deserve it and neither did Julian. He figured it would save him the strife but strife kept stalking him.</p><p>“It’s not, Clark. Look, I’m sorry that I didn’t want to collaborate with Haven. It just wasn’t the right song,” he said. He lied to himself so many times and he was such a convincing actor that he started hating the song the second he decided to turn it down.</p><p>“And?” He prodded.</p><p>“And what?” Julian shot back. “That’s it. Haven’t you been rejected before or has living the high life with Haven made you forget what it was like to hear someone say ‘no’ to what you want?”</p><p>Clark paused. It was so quiet that Julian could hear Clark sigh out of his nose. “Just do it,” Julian interrupted whatever calm sentence Clark was about to spew.</p><p>“Do what?” There was a strain in his neck.</p><p>“Be angry. I know you are. Spit it out. I know you want to,” Julian gesticulated then retracted his arms to fold them around him.</p><p>“Do you want me to be angry?” Clark countered.</p><p>“You clearly are,” Julian retorted.</p><p>Clark huffed. “Why do you want me to be angry?”</p><p>Julian remained silent. He didn’t want to admit that it would’ve been easier if Clark was angry. He was similar enough. He hoped that if he ticked enough boxes, he’d be able to ship his feelings about Clark to the same incinerator he shipped his feelings about Logan to. Then he’d be free again. It should’ve been easy.</p><p>“Because you are. I can tell,” Julian answered. “I can smell it all over you. If you’ve got something to say, just say it because you’re wasting my time!”</p><p>“Julian.” Clark was firm. Julian hated the way the heat in his cheeks cooled when Clark tried to placate him. “I’m not here to argue with you.”</p><p>“It sure feels like it.”</p><p>Clark raked his hands through his hair and huffed again. “I’m not here to be angry with you. I’m here to understand what’s wrong with us. We used to hang out a lot. Talk about all the songs we’d do. Excited about projects we were going to get. Now you’re just doing the absolute most to avoid me and working with me. Was it something I did? Yes or no.”</p><p>Julian rolled his eyes. “I’ve been busy. I told you that a million—”</p><p>“Yes or no,” Clark repeated. “Was it something I did?”</p><p>Julian chewed on the lie and swallowed it. “No,” Julian admitted. It was something he did to himself.</p><p>“Bullshit.”</p><p>“It’s the truth.”</p><p>“Then why does it still feel like I did something wrong?” Clark asked again. He moved closer and Julian squared his shoulders, but kept his arms crossed over his chest. “You’ve been busy before, but you always showed up for everything. You even made time to hang out. You slept in my trailer. I haven’t given you any music that you didn’t love. I’ve been trying to give you space. You know, let you process whatever it is you need to process. But that was the last straw. How stupid do you think I am? You’re a great actor, Julian, but you’re my friend and I can tell when something’s off. I can tell when you’re trying to use that against me. Don’t you think I notice the way you shrink away from me? How the hugs are shorter? How you walk out of a room a few minutes after I enter it like clockwork? And you’ve never asked me to be angry? Why do you want me to be angry? I just don’t get it, J. I don’t. You say it’s nothing I did and that’s what’s fucking me up.”</p><p>Julian’s eyes watered but he forced the tears away. He rubbed his face with one hand. “Don’t you have better things to do, Sawyer?”</p><p>“Don’t you dare,” Clark said. “We’re having this conversation now. I will not allow you to dismiss me like I’m some poor, defenseless A.D.”</p><p>Julian groaned. “What do you want me to say to get you to leave?”</p><p>“Nothing but the truth.”</p><p>“Nothing but the truth?” Julian laughed and every syllable of it tasted of barbed wire. “God, Clark. You’re such a piece of work.”</p><p>“Thank you, so are you,” Clark shot back.</p><p>“What if I don’t want to do music anymore, huh? What if I wanted to focus more on my acting? I don’t know if you know this but I’m an ambitious fuck and don’t think I won’t ignore you for the sake of that. What if I simply don’t have time to fuck around with you and your band’s shenanigans?” Each sentence got louder and louder and he could see Clark’s heart break with every word he flung at him.</p><p>“Then you’d be like everyone else. Then everything you told me about our friendship is built on a lie,” Clark said. “But that’s not the truth.”</p><p>Julian scoffed but his blood ran cold. “What makes you say that?”</p><p>“Just because you’re shouting, doesn’t make it true,” Clark said. “You’re only trying to push me away. You’re saying all the right words that fucking hurt but you’re so full of shit.”</p><p>“Fuck you, Sawyer,” Julian spat.</p><p>“That all you got?” Clark said with an even tone that Julian wasn’t familiar with during these kinds of conversations where the air was flammable and each word struck a match. He hated and loved that about him.</p><p>Clark was solid in front of him. He was patient enough that he would stay here all night if it meant it wore Julian down. There was nowhere out. And he could see, behind his resolve, Clark was hurt. His eyes betrayed his sadness despite the set in his stance and the determination in his breath. He wasn’t going to settle on anything other than the truth.</p><p>“I like you,” Julian said. His mouth trembled but he bit on it. If it was the truth that made Clark leave him alone, then so be it. He’d rather deal with the awkwardness than have to keep fighting Clark until Clark broke first.</p><p>“There. That’s it.” Julian laughed. “Why the hell not—I might even be in love with you,” he flapped at Clark, whose face had gone slack, “and I’m sick of it. Isn’t that just a fucking joke? Someone shows a queer person some love and affection and suddenly we’re in love. Fuck me. You know, I thought falling in love with your straight friend would be easier to deal with than falling in love with your gay friend because I could just be like ‘oh, he’s straight. Zero chances. Get over it.’ But no. I tried and it didn’t fucking work. And I’m not going to go through this bullshit again with you. Anyone but you because you’re seriously one of the best people in my life. I’ve already fucked up one part of my life and I had to amputate it like a fucking World War One doctor before it killed me.” All the steam left Julian’s body and all the fire turned into embers as the tears pounded against the dam. He pressed both palms against his eyes and sucked them back down.</p><p>“Alright. Did that satisfy your curiosity?” Julian let his arms flop to his sides. He lifted his chin, raised his brow, and did his best to look Clark in the eye. A stray sniffle punched a crack into this façade he was desperately trying to maintain. He wasn’t going to cry here. This was pathetic enough.</p><p>Clark’s shock was gone and his face was creased in concern. He stopped and started enough times that Julian had to lead him to the right direction. “I don’t want your pity. If you still want to be my friend, then that’s great, but I’d rather not talk about this anymore.”</p><p>Clark laughed in disbelief. “Oh, we’re going to talk about it.”</p><p>“This doesn’t have to be a therapy session,” Julian griped. “This doesn’t have to be one of the notorious Clark Sawyer Heart-to-Hearts that he gives away at the studio. This is mortifying enough as it is. I don’t want to process this with you.”</p><p>“Julian?” Clark stepped closer.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“For someone so brilliant, you’re so fucking dumb.” Before Julian could respond, Clark dove in, hands on Julian’s cheeks and lips on Julian’s lips.</p><p>The kiss, though quick, was too jarring for Julian to kiss back. He couldn’t comprehend what was happening. His face was numb. He could feel his pulse in the tip of his fingers. The floor under him wobbled as if the world was melting. And there was Clark’s smile. He could still feel that smile. It was embossed on his lips. “Speechless for once, huh?” He murmured.</p><p>His entire body revved awake. “Fuck you, Sawyer.” His hands bunched around Clark’s shirt and yanked him back in. Their teeth clashed. Clark lifted him up to the desk and grabbed his thighs to press them together. Julian’s limbs wrapped around him. His fingers laced through Clark’s hair. Julian kissed Clark with every second of yearning he carried with him. With every daydream he dreamt. With every shiver the butterflies in his stomach elicited from him. Julian kissed Clark and Clark kissed back with the same exuberance as an entire concert crowd during a favored song.</p><p>“You’re so stupid,” Clark mumbled through the kiss. “So, so fucking stupid.” His body shook and Julian wasn’t sure what that meant only for that question to be answered by the taste of tears mingling with their kiss. Before Julian could ask, Clark laughed. “God, I should’ve told you. I should’ve told you,” he whispered as they continued to kiss. “Why are we both so stupid and useless?”</p><p>Julian laughed too.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Songs I listened to on repeat while writing this: <br/>Sleepover by Hayley Kiyoko<br/>Cruel Summer by Taylor Swift</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>